Justice Mugure Thande extended an earlier order halting the implementation of the country’s recently approved Finance Act 2023.
Busia senator Okiya Omtatah, Eliud Matindi, Michael Otieno, and four others filed a petition challenging the constitutionality of the Finance Act 2023.
They argue that the Act was passed without the concurrence of both Speakers of the National Assembly and Senate, as required by the Constitution.
They also argue that the tabling of the Finance Bill was done without following due procedure adding that the housing levy, which compels employers and employees to pay 1.5% each, is unconstitutional because the Constitution limits the national government’s role in housing to developing a housing policy.
Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u argued that the conservatory order could halt government operations by suspending budgetary steps.
The Finance Act 2023 introduces several new taxes, including a 1.5% tax on content creators and a 3% tax on crypto traders.

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Platforms like Fawry and InstaPay tapped into the apex bank’s policies to reduce cash dependencies are responsible for the spread of e-wallets and cards in the North African country where 64% of Egyptians increased their adoption of digital payments solutions last year.
The number of mobile phone wallets reached 46,500 per 100,000 people.
Egypt’s apex bank is keen to promote another method: contactless payments, after recently issuing regulations governing payment card tokenization on mobile apps.
The Egyptian fintech, which provides cashless payment solutions for consumers and businesses through a scan-and-pay service, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Addition, the venture capital firm headed by former Tiger Global executive Lee Fixel.

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Google announced that its AI chatbot, Bard, is now available in South Africa, Brazil, and many parts of the world including the European Union after an initial delay due to data privacy concerns.
Bard is also available in 40 languages including Swahili, the first African language supported by the generative AI platform. Other languages supported by Bard include Arabic, Chinese, German, Hindi, Spanish, and more.
Bard’s code export capabilities have also been expanded, and you can now export Python code to Replit—an online integrated development environment in addition to Google Colab.

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British multinational bank Standard Chartered (StanChart) revealed that it had completed negotiations to have all its sub-Saharan African assets acquired by Access Bank.
The deal, which is set for competition in 2024, will see the sale of StanChart’s subsidiaries in Angola, Cameroon, Gambia, and Sierra Leone, with the exception of StanChart’s Nigerian subsidy.
Access Bank will also acquire Standard Chartered’s consumer, private, and business banking business in Tanzania.
Standard Chartered says Access Bank will provide a full range of banking services and continuity for key stakeholders including employees and clients of Standard Chartered’s businesses across the five countries.

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The Ugandan government amended its Income Tax Act to include a new law that imposes a 5% tax on income earned by foreign companies operating in the country.
This comes weeks after President Yoweri Museveni initially refused to assent to the Income Tax Amendment Bill 2023, stating that it needed to include taxes on non-resident digital companies in the country.
The president stated that the measure was meant to cater for taxation of digital economies such as; Twitter, Amazon, and Netflix; the clause related to non-residents and non-residents in Uganda says it doesn’t relate to residents in Uganda as it was mistakenly stated in the minority report.
The Parliament then reprocessed the bill to include a 5% tax on foreign companies, and the president assented to the bill.

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Fintech company Flutterwave has integrated its payment technology into the International Air Transport Association’s financial gateway.
The IFG is a payment platform specifically created for international airlines and travel agencies to process payments from local markets through various distribution channels. This partnership with Flutterwave allows airlines to have full control over the entire payment and settlement process, from initiation to completion.
This partnership with Flutterwave will greatly benefit foreign airlines and travel agencies looking to collect local currencies through cards and indigenous methods of payment.

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The House of Representatives asked the Central Bank of Nigeria to temporarily halt the implementation of an earlier directive to use social media handles for know-your-customer operations.
The CBN says the policy will allow financial institutions to conduct an effective assessment of potential risks associated with money laundering, terrorism financing, and proliferation financing.
He further argued that there are more efficient ways to monitor money laundering and the financing of terrorism, such as using the Nigeria Police Force, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and intelligence agencies.

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The regulatory crackdown that has shaken up China’s fintech industry since late 2020 appears to be ending with the imposition of hefty fines on the country’s two digital payments giants.
Tencent has been fined approximately 2.99 billion yuan by the People’s Bank of China for its past regulatory breaches in relation to the provision of payment services in mainland of China.
The central bank announced it will slap a 7.123 billion yuan fine on Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba, for a range of illegal activities, including those concerning corporate governance, consumer protection, banking and insurance, payments and settlement, anti-money laundering practices and fund sales.

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The Twitter rival, Instagram’s text-based app Threads has achieved the mark of 100 million sign-ups in just five days.
Mark Zuckerberg noted on the first day that the app attracted 2 million sign-ups in two hours, 5 million sign-ups in four hours, and 10 million registered users in seven hours.
The next morning, the CEO of Meta noted that more than 30 million people had signed up to try the new app.
The app has a read-only web interface, no support for post search, direct messages, hashtags, and no “Following” feed. Because of Instagram’s rules, the app doesn’t allow nudity on its platform.

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Zimbabwe’s industrial electricity consumers are aiming to raise R4.7 billion for phase one of floating solar panels on Kariba Dam.
The Zimbabwean government’s sovereign wealth fund will possess a 10% share in the company, while the remaining 38% will be open to investors, including development banks.
Members of The Intensive Energy User Group, including mining companies, will have a 52% ownership stake in a development company responsible for the project located in Kariba Dam.
The power station initially designed for 250 megawatts will generate electricity sold to the group and other eligible customers through a 25-year power-purchase agreement.

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